T.O.P.'s Tuesday: Lesson Learned Years Later

A few weeks ago while on a "work-cation" with daughter I worked on my next book. I wrote some new things and finished other  pieces I had saved. It was during the process of finishing something written month prior that God spoke to my heart and taught me a valuable lesson, or two.

First is a reminder, we can read the same Scripture a hundred times and then have something totally different stand out to us on the 101st time. Have you ever had this happen? The first time I taught the Parable of the Sower in a Sunday School class, I messed up big time. I was a baby Christian and looking back, the pastor should have given me a mentor. Thankfully, his son, the same child who shared the importance of a relationship with Jesus with me, was in this class. I learned the song and as we sang the song, I changed the verses.  Yup, I was so wrong but didn't see it at the time.

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The lesson I prepared was a flop yet God used my lack of knowledge and heart to teach the kids to open my eyes and mind to learn from my students. The best teachers learn from their students. Anyway, what does this have to do with anything? Here's the deal, even after being corrected in 2005 about the parable of the seed, it wasn't until 2020 that I grasped the Truth and power of this parable, well, on a deep personal level anyway. Isn't this cool? In the midst of my pain and sorrow I focused on the injury under the band-aid and not the ointment of healing God used as a seed. Focus!?

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.” The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” 

He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “ ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. 

“Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy."
​Matthew 13:1-20 NIV

Another lesson I learned is the ability for the same Bible verse we've read time and again to have the ability to stand out and teach us something, at the very moment we need it. Or maybe it isn't that we needed it anymore, but we are ready to process and accept God's message? Either way, I'm thankful to keep learning and pray that you and I remain open to learn as we read and reread our Bibles.

Have you experienced a moment like this before?